Been a hard few months. I took some hits. But I’ve got my legs underneath me now, and I’m getting up swinging.
Spare Capacity
The tradeoff between efficiency and resilience seems to have tilted far in the direction of efficiency. That works well for a while. An efficient system easily compensates for problems we foresee. But problems are often unforeseen, and few people want to build resilience in the face of something they don’t expect.
With the pandemic, the pendulum has started swinging in the other direction, and I imagine it will swing far.
BJJ
I like jiu jitsu.
Warfare
The reason getting involved in other people’s wars is terribly compelling to some people is that at least you know who is trying to kill you. You don’t know when and you don’t know where, but at least you know who. And humans put a great deal of importance in who.
Fat Bear Week
Is on.
I’m rooting for 747 and 854.
Elon Musk vs Twitter
Congratulations, Twitter. You forced someone you hate to buy your company.
Okay?
So now you hate your boss. And he doesn’t like you. And either he’s going to ruin the company as you’ve been saying for years, at which point he will ruin the company you work for, or…you’re all gonig to look like fools.
Seriously, what is the good outcome here?
CS Lewis’s Hell.
I’ll Do Anything
…is lazy writing.
The speaker can’t be bothered to make an offer. The author can’t be bothered to make the speaker make an offer. They both want someone else to come along and figure out what this character is good for. It’s laziness.
Subplots
Subplots are weird. They need to be independent of the main plot but support it.